


How Would You Know

by A_Mild_Sort_of_Orgy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, johnlock if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Mild_Sort_of_Orgy/pseuds/A_Mild_Sort_of_Orgy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For two years of undercover work and bruises and scars, Sherlock had thought of nothing but John and this quiet place. Now he had the freedom to think, he didn't want to.</p><p>Just a coda to "The Empty Hearse" to purge all my feels. Filling in the blanks from the train carriage scene. SPOILERS FOR THE EMPTY HEARSE!</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Would You Know

Sherlock Holmes had been back in 221b Baker Street for five days, solved more than five cases including defusing a serious terrorist threat, held a press conference, and enjoyed the company of all the people he was now no longer afraid to call friends. Caring had its advantages, despite Mycroft's objections otherwise.

Moonlight streamed in through the open curtains of the flat and splashed across the prone figure spread across the cushions with bare feet propped up on one arm of the still dusty sofa. Just a few hours earlier, Mary had sat in this exact spot to be congratulated by Mrs. Hudson, drinking champagne Sherlock himself had poured. John had wandered aimlessly around the flat, shadowing Sherlock, never settling on a place to sit, never looking at Sherlock for too long. Like he didn't want to get used to looking at Sherlock again.

Sherlock inhaled sharply, pressing his fingertips together beneath his chin so hard the pads turned white and numb. For five days he had spent all of his time thinking and planning and deducing, taking useless cases with Molly trailing along for that one cold day, all to avoid these thoughts.

 _John_.

Swinging his legs off the sofa, Sherlock shot up to a sitting position. The quiet of the flat, punctuated by low murmur of Mrs. Hudson's telly downstairs, rose up and pressed down on his temples. It felt too much like before – before he'd gone away, before he'd learned to mask his anxiety behind too many words and jokes and smiles, before he'd had to because boffin Sherlock Holmes was never anxious but Sherlock-without-John was, before when he'd used drugs as a mask and loneliness like a cloak. For two years of undercover work and bruises and scars, Sherlock had thought of nothing but John and this quiet place. Now he had the freedom to think, he didn't want to.

 _I find it difficult, this sort of stuff._ John's voice bubbled up from behind the door in his mind palace, the one that never seemed to stay shut no matter how many times Sherlock had slammed it. John's voice had been in his head the entire time he had been away, muttering praises and advice and encouragement. But now Sherlock was back, now John was so close, that voice had turned dark and angry. Accusing in low tones, the same low tone that had rumbled, “I've got all night” when Sherlock had tried so hard to distract John from the why of what he did. He wasn't ready to explain the why.

He just wanted John to understand.

And yes, he wanted John to say nice things again.

Thus, the trick with the bomb. It wasn't a conscious decision, not really, not like John seemed to think. Not like Sherlock let John think. Encouraged him to think even. He'd just pretended he hadn't found the off switch. It seemed like the right thing to do.

“I'm sorry,” he'd said, the disengaged bomb beneath him and the first person he'd ever called friend above him. “I can't do it, John. I don't know how.”

He really didn't know how he could, because he couldn't. Couldn't keep going through the motions without John knowing he was sorry, really truly sorry. That there had never been a moment when he hadn't missed John. Sherlock didn't know how to fit back into London and he certainly didn't know how to fit this new John into the hole by his side.

“Please, John. Forgive me for all of the hurt that I've caused you.”

And that was it, really. None of this, absolutely none of it, was worth it if John couldn't forgive him. Sherlock knew he wasn't a particularly courageous man – not a hero, as he'd often reminded John – and he'd be damned before he let John know the real reason he'd jumped off that building, but he needed John's forgiveness more than anything he'd ever needed in his life.

He'd accused Mycroft of not knowing the depth of his own loneliness, not just out of brotherly spite, but because Sherlock knew what it was like to yearn for the company of another person. There was no substitute for John, no lengths Sherlock would not go for him, and the belief that John hated the sight of him had gutted him. He was back and so too should John have been.

It had been desperate and John had seen through it, like Sherlock knew he would, but John had squared his shoulders anyway. Hissed the words through clenched teeth, lobbing them at Sherlock like so many pounds of explosives.

“You were the best and wisest man that I have ever known. Yes. Of course, I forgive you.”

Sherlock had never realized that relief could feel an awful lot like pain, that forgiveness could slice through flesh and crack open a ribcage and throttle a heart. As Sherlock had fought for breath, _sentiment_ rising up to push at the backs of his throat and eyelids, John screwed up his eyes and braced for an explosion.

In Baker Street four years earlier, Sherlock had asked John to imagine what his last words would be if he were facing death. “Oh god, let me live,” he'd answered without a second thought. Now, faced with death again, John had offered absolution and acceptance.

It had been too much.

It hadn't been enough.

Sherlock still felt a bit guilty about laughing so hard, the sound bubbling up past his uvula and emerging before he even knew if it would be laughter or sobbing. He'd had to wipe away tears anyway, as he'd fallen back on jokes and irreverence, glorying in the reluctant laugh he'd pulled from John. It had felt good and right, like it had been before John and Sherlock had ever really said anything that meant anything.

Until John had taken Mary by the arm and led her down the steps, out of 221b and into a waiting cab.

The muted click of Mrs. Hudson's telly switching off and the subsequent shuffling sounds of her nightly routine roused Sherlock from the dark cesspool of his own thoughts, his fingers tugging against the curls that just a week ago had hung in lanky ribbons down his back in Serbia. He slid his hands back down, balancing his elbows on his thighs and letting his fingers dangle between his knees.

John had called him a cock, in the same warm tone he'd long ago used to call Sherlock an idiot. Laughed, joked, and left the flat to this quiet contemplation. Sherlock wrenched himself off the sofa and strode into the kitchen, flipping the kettle on as he passed. He took a perverse pleasure in slamming the cupboards shut after pulling out the tea, thinking viciously of the experiments he could now run in the microwave, the refrigerator, the damned tea tin.

Sherlock didn't know who to be when John wasn't in 221b, when he wasn't being one half of _SherlockHolmesandJohnWatson_ , because Sherlock-without-John knew he was different and that no one cared. 


End file.
